Between Research and Archéologie préventive: The State of/in the Field of Medieval Monastic Archaeology

Summary

This is an abstract from the "New Work in Medieval Archaeology, Part 2: Crossing Boundaries, Materialities, and Identities" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Our paper will survey in critical fashion the last 20 years of medieval monastic archaeology in France. During that time, the new research directions of the late 1990s have confronted a changed landscape for archaeological work. The creation of INRAP has meant that fewer university-sponsored research programs have been proposed, approved and funded. Research questions have instead been increasingly tempered by the necessities of rescue archaeology. In this context, sites approved for excavation are often the result of new industrial construction, urban expansion or rehabilitation of older historic structures to new purposes. We will examine the data for patterns of archaeological priorities as these impinge upon monastic sites, assessing where monastic sites have been explored, which monastic orders have been privileged, where female houses have been investigated, and where larger comparative questions of environment, technology and regionalism have been sought.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• New Work in Medieval Archaeology, Part 2: Crossing Boundaries, Materialities, and Identities   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 38148.0